


All the Ways that Matter

by bergamot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Future Fic, Longing, Love, Mild Smut, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:04:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bergamot/pseuds/bergamot
Summary: The winds of winter howl outside the stoic walls of Winterfell, while inside, Brienne struggles to come to terms with life's triumphs and passions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JB Week, Day 6: Longing

Jaime caught her watching Sansa and the babe at the high table. His hand on her arm drew Brienne’s eyes from the sight—Lady Sansa with her hair a russet curtain around the pale head of her son. The babe’s small hand, skin nearly translucent in the torchlight, reaching up to catch an auburn lock. Sansa’s laughter echoed across the hall as Jon Snow leaned forward to get a look at the happy pair.

Brienne hadn’t meant for Jaime to see, but they always sat side by side at the day’s meal, and lately, no one had much to say. Brienne stared into her empty bowl of gruel, the watery broth of barley and bacon long-gone. Her ale was still untouched, and she reached a trembling hand to seize it. She took a sip, the drink heavy and heady on her tongue, the taste like acorns in summer.

Jaime’s eyes were on her hand, her arm, her cheek. She stared at the table a moment longer, unable to bear the weight of his gaze. He would know what he’d seen.

All around them, bread crusts scraped at rough-cut bowls while men slurped at the last of their gruel and gulped down ale with their throats pulsing. The walls waited for many of them, and it was easier to face the ever-present night with a full belly and drink singing in one’s veins. Even Brienne went out in such a state sometimes, when Winter grew too much for her to bear and the winds screamed against Winterfell’s stoic walls. She didn’t like ale, but she recognized its power to comfort and numb.

Not tonight, however. There was no balm to sooth this wound, no poultice to set it to a swift healing. Her eyes flicked to the high table and back, a last look before she set down her drink and stood. The bench scraped under her weight, even with Jaime and Podrick sitting on either side of her. Jaime stilled, his hand on his bowl, but Podrick kept on eating. Brienne wore no mail, only linen and wool and her sword. Oathkeeper knocked against the edge of the table and set the ale shaking in its cup. She didn’t wait for it to still, too great was the need thrumming in her to escape.

She made it halfway to the bathhouse before Jaime called her name.  

“Leave me,” was all she replied. “You’re wanted on the walls.”

“My watch can wait,” Jaime ground out, his scowl laced with concern. He was too protective of her; it would get him killed some day, they both knew that.

She sighed and said, softer, “Let me go, Jaime, I’ll be alright.”

“Will you sleep, wench?”

She nodded. “I’ll try to, at least.”

He put his hand on her arm again, the lightest touch, and turned to leave. Brienne grasped his shoulder before he could step away, the wool of his cloak rough beneath her palm, and pulled him back to face her. “Do not die,” she whispered.

His eyes were amused, but his expression serious. “On my honor,” he said, the words the same each time they parted for the walls.

The bathhouse was empty, and Brienne relished the silence and the peace. Torches flared at the doorway, but the rest of the vaulted room was shrouded in shadow. She sunk into the warm waters and scrubbed herself with sand from the bottom of the pool. When her skin stung, she leaned back against the ledge and watched steam swirl across the water’s surface.

She could almost imagine that there was no war, no Others, no death. Summer sunshine streamed just outside the door, the trees bursting with sharp green leaves. They would be the color of Jaime’s eyes, she thought, and allowed herself one brief moment of girlish wistfulness.

If she shut her eyes she could see him, standing in the Godswood, perhaps, or even on the beach on Tarth. He wore a cloak of fine summer wool, silky under her fingertips. His beard was newly trimmed and his grey-gold hair curled against his ears. Widow’s Wail hung useless at his side; there were no enemies here. Just Jaime and Brienne. He held out his hand to her and smiled, his eyes warm with affection. Brienne pressed her hand in his, her calluses scrubbed smooth. Oathkeeper shone at her hip, its ruby eyes glinting fiercely. Jaime pulled her to him, flush against his lean body, and pressed his lips to hers.

In the bath, Brienne lowered her hand across her breast and down her abdomen until she found the juncture between her legs. The bathhouse was empty and the night was never-ending. She gave herself over to Jaime’s touch. It was a silly thing, painful almost, the kind of longing that consumed her now. Winterfell was full of dreams.

*

Brienne was not due on the walls for hours, so she kept her word to Jaime and did her best to sleep. They shared a small chamber in the Library Tower, their bedrolls separated by a small area of bare floor. Her armor was waiting on one side of the room, dented and in need of cleaning. She did not have the energy for such chores these days, and even if she did, a part of her relished in its appearance, worn in battles hard fought and hard won.

The room was icy cold. The only light came from the tallow candle Brienne held in one hand. She set it on the open floor between the bedrolls, then tugged her boots off one by one. Those, she set to the side by a rucksack filled with clothes and her monthly woman’s supplies. Then she settled back on her bedroll and drew a large sheepskin up to her neck. A wool blanket went over it, and another bundled under her head. She had her thick wool cloak within reach, but she would wait until the cold was too much to bear before adding it to her nest.

She turned on her side and kicked her legs in an effort to get comfortable. The tallow candle shivered and smoked. It filled the room with an acrid scent, something almost meaty that made Brienne’s belly ache. Outside, the wind whistled against the sides of the tower. This room had no window, and for that Brienne was grateful. She would never sleep with the blasts of the horn coming every new hour, or the shouts of men fighting along the walls.

She tried not to think of Jaime, but that seldom worked. She hoped he was safe and whole. They often fought side by side, but, as late, their Valyrian steel swords were needed more frequently, and they went out with whichever men were fighting while they were awake.

Brienne tossed in her bed and listened for distant cries. Was it the wind she heard or Jaime’s voice?

The candle burned low and Brienne’s eyes grew heavy. Hours passed, but still sleep did not come. Her feet were cold, her legs restless. She imagined what it would be like so sleep with another body pressed against hers, to share their warmth. She had never shared a bedroll but Jaime; she hadn’t dared to ask, even on the nights so cold they both lay awake shivering.  Besides, she could not sleep with Jaime out there on the wall—how would she listen for his voice crying out?

Finally, the sound of a boot on the step outside their door had her sitting up on her elbow. Jaime pushed the door open and came in with a gust of cold. He smelled of ice and looked like death, his hair hanging lank and wet around his face. He glanced at the candle and then quickly at her.

“You lied,” he accused her, sounding oddly pleased. “You said you would sleep.”

“ _Try_ to sleep,” Brienne grumbled, settling back into her covers. “And I did try.”

“Don’t tell me, wench, that you can’t sleep without me by your side?”

She didn’t answer. He chuckled and began to strip away his armor. In a moment, Brienne was standing, careful not to disturb the candle on the floor. Without a word, she worked the buckles at Jaime’s shoulders and, piece by piece, lifted his armor away. He would never ask her for assistance, but he did not grudge her helping him. They were well versed in this particular dance, and it was only minutes before he stood in the middle of the room in shirt and pants.

He kneaded his stump and watched her turn back to her bed. He caught her hand in the air above the tallow candle, and the gesture threw a slash of shadow against the wall. “You need sleep,” he said, his voice hard and soft at the same time. “If you don’t sleep, you won’t be sharp for fighting, and if you aren’t sharp…” He swallowed thickly. They knew what happened then.

Brienne only nodded, her eyes trained on his hand. His fingers worked at her own, messaging, caressing. A bolt of desire shot along her spine and down her legs. She looked up to find him watching her, his eyes dark and hungry. For what, she could not answer. He did not close the distance between them, nor did she. Another moment and she slipped her hand from his grasp and retreated to the safety of her bedroll.

“Goodnight, wench,” he murmured, tugging at the covers on his bedroll.

“Goodnight,” she whispered against her sheepskin.

His breath huffed once and the light of the candle went out.

*

Widow’s Wail screamed at her side. Brienne grunted and twisted to the left, just in time to dodge Jaime’s blade as it fell. The Other they were fighting burst into a fine white mist and joined the snow that howled around them. Brienne waved the torch in her left hand and hefted Oathkeeper in her right. Together, she and Jaime moved down the wall towards a cluster of men hacking at a group of wights. Brienne set fire to a gaunt man clothed in a tattered tunic. The man howled as flames licked his skeletal form, and she spun on her heel with the torch held out in front of her.

Out here on the wall, the wights attacked with little notice and the Others with even less. They commanded their army of undead from a distance, often disguised by dense fog that clawed the snow banks. Sometimes they sent wind ripping along Winterfell’s walls, and it was all the men could do to push against it and hope their torches stayed lit. Brienne almost found it amusing how little she relied on her sword these days; it was only when an Other appeared that Brienne or Jaime had use of their blades.

Jaime’s swordsmanship had improved, as Brienne knew it would, with frequent practice. He’d left his old practice mate somewhere in the Riverlands all those months ago, and now he sparred with Brienne and, sometimes, Jon Snow. His left hand was improving and he knew it. He’d smirked too often as Brienne was left panting in the middle of the practice ring after a bout, Oathkeeper propped beneath her as a crutch to hold herself up.

In Winter, the only skill that truly mattered was speed. Be the first to swing the blade, however clumsy, the torch however swiftly, and they lived another day. Another night.

When the final wight thrashed to ash on the snowy ground and the fog from the Others shrank back like a kicked dog, the men along the wall slapped one another on the back and made their way to the South Gate. A fresh group of men would take their place within the hour, horns at the ready in case the fog returned. They were running low on men these days, and the frequency of their rotations grew shorter as the nights wore on, but no one wanted to think of that. Tonight, no man had died to the hand of a wight or the crystal blade of an Other—a rare victory, indeed.

A man named Albett clapped Jaime on the shoulder as they walked and winked at Brienne. “Another night to celebrate, aye, Kingslayer?”

Brienne watched Jaime’s jaw work, but there was no malice or mockery in Albett’s voice, only comradery. “Aye,” said Jaime, “and what a celebration it will be.”

The other men in the group cheered raucously, and Jaime tossed Brienne a laughing look. She had no smile to return to him, however. He did not seem to notice the way the men jeered at Brienne as she followed them through the gate and across the courtyard to the Great Keep. Though they respected her enough not to voice their thoughts aloud, she still heard them clearly. _Kingslayer’s Whore_ was an epithet that would be tied to her forever, however untrue it might be. The falsehood only added to its cruelness.

*

“Would you hold him, Lady Brienne?”

Sansa pushed the babe into Brienne’s arms before she had a chance to protest. The babe squalled and wriggled against her dented breast plate, and Sansa laughed, her eyes light and merry. She was the last bright thing in Winterfell, a summer bird that flitted from table to table while the men worried at their ale. How she found the energy for happiness was a secret Brienne wished she could uncover. Brienne braced her arms nervously as the babe twisted and kicked and grabbed at Oathkeeper’s hilt.

“A future warrior, wouldn’t you say, my lady?” laughed Jaime at Brienne’s left. He put out his stump for the baby to grasp.

The babe was blue-eyed and sweet like his mother. Brienne did not know the true father, and Sansa would never say. Her son was of Winterfell and the North; that had been enough for her and enough for Jon Snow, too. Sansa had been round with child when Brienne returned to Winterfell from the Riverlands, Jaime at her side. There had been so much to worry about, with Winter coming and the Others on their doorstep, that the babe’s parentage seemed hardly important. Sansa was happy and healthy, and besides, Brienne did not have her lady’s ear in that way.

She bounced the babe in her arms until it gurgled around Jaime’s mangled right arm. He smiled and palmed the back of the babe’s head gently. “They have the finest hair when they’re this age.” He smiled and made a face at the babe, then he looked up. “I never had the pleasure to be around babies much,” he said, “but I remember that about them.”

Brienne ached to reach out to him; she knew he thought of his children then. The sons and daughter lost to war, whom Cersei had kept from him. Jaime had told her once that he never thought of himself as their father, not really, not when he’d never been allowed to touch them or show them love. Brienne had not grown up with devoted parents, but her father had loved her well. She remembered climbing onto his big lap in the great hall back home, the way his laugh boomed throughout the keep.

“You look good with a child in your arms, wench,” Jaime declared.

Brienne felt her cheeks heating from embarrassment and anger. He did not know what he did to her, how his words were like needles in her heart. She ducked her head and gave him a half-hearted smile. “I will take your word for it,” she said. “I fear I have no talent for children.”

Jaime lifted his stump away from the babe and wiped it against his thigh. “What is it you’re always telling me about my sword practice? You only get better if you try?”

Brienne could not answer that. Words left her. He was looking at her with such teasing in his eyes that she wanted to weep with bitterness. She turned away from him and carried the babe to Sansa who sat at the high table in conversation with Howland Reed. 

“My lady, if you’ll excuse me?” Brienne bounced the baby one last time against her hip and granted him a fleeting smile. He lifted his arm and waved a tiny fist in her face.

Sansa grinned and clapped her hands, then held them out toward him. “Why, of course, Lady Brienne, if you must.”

Brienne passed the babe back to his mother and departed quickly from the hall. She kept her eyes on the toes of her boots and the flagstones beneath her feet. She did not wish to see Jaime’s face or read the disappointment in his eyes.

*

It was Jaime’s turn to wait up for her that night, and she wondered how long he had lingered outside the bathhouse. She found him leaning against the passageway wall, his eyes on his stump as he twisted it back and forth in the torchlight. He looked up when she emerged from the baths, her skin still pink from scrubbing and her pale hair damp.

He said nothing as she turned down the hall toward the Library Tower. Her shirt clung to the dampness on her back, and she was grateful that the journey back was covered. Outside, a snowstorm hurled daggers of ice at the windows in the Great Hall and blasted the sides of the Keep with frigid gusts. Brienne felt for the men on the walls tonight, and thanked the Seven that she and Jaime had been spared that task. It would be Jon up there with his sword Longclaw and perhaps a few of the Wildling men.

They passed the empty kennels and the open doors of the Great Hall. The hall was near empty, only a few men gathered at a table in the corner, their heads bent together over flagons of drink. Brienne’s boots scuffed against the stone and she trailed her hand along the passageway wall, forgetting for a moment that Jaime followed close behind. He walked in near silence and said nothing, and after a time, the quiet began to eat at her nerves.

“Will the storm last the night?” she asked him over her shoulder, hoping to draw him out of whatever mood he was in. Jaime only grunted in response as she turned a corner and started up the stairs to their room.

The Library Tower twisted in the old way, a spiral with uneven steps and arrow slits cut into its sides. Winterfell had no vellum or dried grass to stop the wind from climbing in now, and it hissed and whistled in the windows as they passed. Here, the stone was too cold for Brienne’s fingertips, so she let her hand drop to her side, wishing she had brought her cloak after all.

Jaime’s steps echoed after her own. He was closer now, his breath a warm presence on her back. She searched for more words to toss his way, wondering if he was holding his tongue until they reached the room—if he would censure her, perhaps, for fleeing Sansa and her babe earlier in the hall. She turned her head to ask him just such a thing, the words jumping daringly to her lips, when he reached out to grasp her hand and stopped her.

They were on the third landing of the tower, a storeroom door to their left. Jaime’s fingers grasped her wrist and then he let them fall, sliding down until they caught her fingertips instead. She peered at him in the dark of the stairwell, but he was not looking at her face, he was staring at her hand. At their fingers intertwined.

“Brienne,” he sighed. “Wench.”

She tugged her hand from his and continued her climb, her heart pounding at the sound of her name on his lips. He caught her again, this time pushing her roughly against the wall. His stump dug into the small of her back and his hand roamed up her arm, onto her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he rumbled and she could see the glint of his eyes in the dark.

The moment was a scroll unravelling between them. Brienne searched his face, but she only read uncertainty there. Jaime lurched forward and captured her lips with his own. He pressed into her, their bodies fitting together like cut stone.

Her hands moved along his back of their own volition, and when her lips parted, she let his tongue delve deep into her mouth. Soft, demanding. He stroked her face with his hand, and Brienne moaned wantonly. She pulled back at the sound of her own voice, her hand pressing against Jaime’s chest until she could see his face fully.

“Is this a dream?” The words tumbled from her lips before she could catch them. She felt his smirk before she saw it. “Is this a jest?” She hissed, “Are you mocking me?”

Jaime let his head fall forward against her shoulder, and they stood like that for a moment in the faint light of the stairwell. When he looked up again, his expression was grim. “You must know me better than that, wench, surely. Do you think I would I laugh at you?” She did not. “I _want_ you,” he insisted, moving his body along hers in a way that had her skin singing. “I have wanted you for more nights now than I can count.”

 _No._ It was too much.

Brienne shoved him back until he hit the other side of the stairwell. She took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning, her heart a galloping horse in her chest. The air was cold against her still-wet hair; her face was numb. There was a slickness between her legs, but she did not want to think on that—had no need, anyway, for she knew what her traitorous body craved.

*

She pushed through the door of their room where a torch sputtered on the wall. She wondered again how long Jaime had been waiting for her outside the bathhouse; if he had come here first to sleep and then changed his mind. Their bedrolls lay on opposite sides of the room, their armor stacked side-by-side against the far wall. Widow’s Wail and Oathkeeper rested in one corner, and the torchlight caught in the red-black depths of the twin blades.

Jaime was not far behind her, his step outside their door sounding a moment after hers. His face was a rugged twist of emotion, so many hovering there that Brienne could not read them. Desire she saw clearly in the lines of his leonine body, but fear as well, and sorrow. Longing. Her heart jolted hard against her sternum to recognize that same sweeping hopefulness in Jaime’s face. How loneliness coated his limbs like ice.

“What are you doing?” She breathed. “What is this?”

Jaime advanced slowly, just enough to close the door. He pressed his back against it. “I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice low.

Brienne shook her head, a thousand different dreams rising in her mind, each one of them more absurd than the next. “Stop saying that! I don’t want you to be sorry.”

In an instant, his expression shifted to naked hunger and he pushed himself away from the door. “Then I won’t be,” he growled, approaching her.

His kiss was searing, and Brienne, as inexperienced as she was, could only clutch his back and his hips and try to keep pace with him. But Jaime was relentless, his tongue sliding against hers like two swords clashing. Steel sung, and he ripped his mouth from hers and dragged his teeth against the flesh of her thick neck, his hand memorizing the curves of her body until she trembled against him, breathless.

“If you want me to be the selfish, dishonorable Kingslayer,” he hissed, “I will be.” He kissed her again, briefly, and then pulled away. “Is that what you wish, my lady?”

Brienne’s breath was a frantic thing. “No,” she gasped. “I don’t want—I don’t know—”

Jaime hummed, the sound reverberating in her bones. He smoothed her hair away from her forehead with his stump. “Shall I tell you want I wish, Brienne? What I have wished for so long?” He dropped a kiss against her cheek, soft. A feather.

“I wish to call you wife,” he whispered, “so that I may finally have a reason to run those men through who call you names when they think I cannot hear.”

He kissed her again, and Brienne closed her eyes, certain she was still floating in the warm waters of the bathhouse. “I wish you would share a bed with me— _come_ in bed with me—when we are done fighting every night. I wish you would look at me with those blue eyes of yours and say the words, the only oath left unsaid between us.”

He let her go, and Brienne was left to steady herself in the flare of torchlight, her hand pressed against the cold wall above her bedroll. He raked his hair with his hand and looked at her, raw. “You held that babe tonight, and all I could think of was how our own child would look in your arms. How he would have your eyes. Your goodness.”

Brienne opened her lips to reply, but no words came. She could not answer him. It was a question she had never dared to answer herself. Motherhood was not something women like her were allowed to want. She was too ugly, too masculine. Too much a fighter. Who would lead the men at the walls while Brienne was big with child? How would she watch over Jaime and their child, too? She closed her eyes against the thought, hope fluttering against her chest at the image he painted of them.

“I wait for you every night,” she told him, finally, opening her eyes again. “I cannot sleep without you, I only think of how you might die and I’d not be by your side.” Her eyes welled with tears, but she brushed them away angrily, upset that her body would betray her. “You speak of things we can never have. This is a jest, Jaime. Surely you will wish for someone more beautiful, more suitable to play a lord’s wife, if ever we see that day.”

Jaime blinked at her as if sifting through her words. His eyes were burning sharp and bright as the fire they used along the walls. In a step, two, he was across the room with his arms around her again.

“How can you think there is anyone more suitable than you?” He did not wait for her to answer. His lips against hers were demanding, no longer patient and gentle. He poured everything into that kiss and Brienne, greedy as she was, took it all.

His hand was in her hair, the warmth of his stump resting firmly against her back. He coaxed her mouth open with his lips and teeth and tongue, and when she gave into him, he was ruthless. His hand moved across her collarbone and dipped into her shirt. He pulled at the strings that held the neckline tight and exposed one breast. The air was cold against her skin, but her nipple had already pebbled, and he took it between his lips until Brienne arched against him.

She was inexperienced but not ignorant; she felt the hardness of Jaime’s arousal pressing against her thigh. She had been in army camps most of her adult life, had seen how men and women took their pleasure. And if she would have hesitated at first, the weight of her passion drove her to be brave. Her hands dug at Jaime’s shoulders, pulled roughly at his tunic and shirt until he lifted his arms and let her toss the garments to the floor. He paid her the same respect and when they were finally unclothed, he led her to her bedroll, pushed the sheepskin to the side and laid her down.

“I’ll not have you in the secrecy of night with no one being the wiser, wench,” he said, resting on one arm above her. “Say you’ll be my wife, Brienne.”

His eyes asked for a thousand other oaths, but she could only answer once. “Yes,” she said, her heart pounding.

His caress was as tender as her nights in the baths, his lips firm. If there was pain, it was a flash in the fire of every other sensation. She tried not to feel clumsy, smiled with him when her teeth hit his shoulder. She slid her thighs along his legs and back as he rocked into her, stroked his face and his neck with her hands. He panted her name against her hair and whispered sweet words that sent her flying. She tried not to feel self-conscious at the way her body reacted to his, the way she arched as her head fell back with a keening cry.

He moved her jaw with his hand so she would look at him as she came undone, and she did. She gave herself to him fully.

If there were children, she would welcome them. She would learn how to be a mother the same way she would learn how to be a lover. The same way she had learned to fight. But, secretly, she would hope that they had Jaime’s eyes and Jaime’s goodness. They would raise them in the winter winds and the ever-present night. Raise them with Sansa’s boy and laughter in the Great Hall, for however long it lasted. And if children did not come, she would not mourn that, either.

She would say the words with Jaime in the Godswood on the morrow: “I am yours and you are mine,” and know that they had already pledged that oath in silence long ago, in all the ways that mattered.


End file.
